36 | CASPER FOR MAKING MONEY IN OUR SLEEPE

Last summer, Casper—the New York–based mattress company that aims, as its founders say, to become the Nike of sleep—introduced a surprising new product. It was only Casper’s fourth major launch, after its high-tech foam mattress (which debuted in 2014) and extra-breathable sheets and pillow (2015), but it differed from those products in a major way. This one, it turned out, wasn’t meant for humans.

The Casper Dog Mattress, which sells for $125, promises “to create a sleep environment that caters to canines’ natural behaviors.” An R&D team spent 11 months conducting dog sleep studies, consulting with canine psychologists and churning through more than 100 prototypes. “Which is a crazy idea,” admits Neil Parikh, one of Casper’s five cofounders and its COO. “It’s a dog bed!” The mattress (“Designed for top dogs, by top dogs”) is selling briskly. But that’s only part